While I suppose it was inevitable that the Crowell dismissal would be the inspiration for another Jeff Schultz column in which he appoints himself Mark Richt’s scold, yesterday’s piece took a slightly different tack from whereSchultz usually goes when the criminal element rears its ugly head in Athens town.

That may be the consequence, as Schultz concedes, of the fact that nobody can accuse Richt of sitting on his hands anymore when a player, even one as important as Crowell was, crosses a line.

Richt, to his credit, no longer responds to players’ criminal or just plain stupid actions by merely making them run stadium steps or suspending their dessert privileges. He has come a long way from enabling Odell Thurman. He suspends players. He kicks them out. He tries to make them understand that getting four or five stars stamped on your forehead by a recruiting site and the ego trip of a signing-day news conference shouldn’t be accompanied by a sense of entitlement (even if it too often does).

Or, it may be because certain issues are both beyond Richt’s control and not matters that Richt’s peers need address, again, as Schultz concedes: “Some of Georgia’s problems can be attributed to having a tougher drug-and-alcohol policy than other schools.”

But seven kids are gone, gone, gone from Georgia’s vaunted Dream Team class. And that means somebody’s got to shake a vigorous finger in Richt’s direction. Jeff Schultz is more than happy to supply that finger. It’s just that instead of tut-tutting about an out of control program, it’s now about not winning enough.

The problem now is that too many of the players Georgia is recruiting should be red-lined. The line of risk needs to be pulled back.

Obviously, Richt and his staff are getting a lot right. The Bulldogs are favored to win the SEC East. They’re projected to open the season as a top-10 team.

But imagine if they actually had everybody there.

So Richt’s a guy who needs to be held accountable when he tolerates bad behavior, and he’s also a guy who needs to be held accountable when he doesn’t. How does that work exactly? Well, it would seem to start by weeding out the bad seeds before they ever get to campus.

Have the negative headlines of this offseason given him reason to pay closer attention to a recruit’s personal blemishes?

“We do find out as much as we possibly can,” he said. “There are rules on how many times we can call a kid and see him in person. We try to maximize those things.”

Sorry. But losing seven of 26 kids from one recruiting class in one year screams that there’s a need for a better filter.

What sort of filter? Schultz doesn’t have an answer – and again concedes that there probably isn’t an easy one.

Richt was accurate when he said, “To say that issues aren’t happening around the country isn’t really realistic.”

Every major program in the country wanted Isaiah Crowell coming out of high school. There wasn’t a one of them which wouldn’t have taken his signature on the dotted line had it been offered. And there wasn’t a word of warning when Crowell hoisted that puppy in the air that Richt was making a serious mistake in signing him. Indeed, Schultz himself had this to say after Ealey and King left the program: “Fact is, the Dogs were going to rise or fall next season on the strength of freshman Isaiah Crowell, any way.”

So somehow Mark Richt is supposed to be able to reach into the hearts and minds of men (well, seventeen-year old men, anyway) and divine an evil purpose that no one else can see. In other words, Mark Richt’s biggest flaw as a head coach is that he’s not the greatest amateur psychiatrist on the planet.

That’s not a standard Schultz has failed to deploy before. If you’ll recall, he was very critical of Richt’s search for a replacement for Willie Martinez, not because Grantham was a poor choice, but because Richt got used during the search process by the likes of Foster, Chavis and Smart to get better contracts from their existing employers. As I pointed out at the time, that premise ignores the way the hiring process works. But in Schultz’ mind, it should have been obvious to Richt than none of those men were ever serious about coming to Georgia.

Of course, the beautiful thing here is that none of us know if Richt and his staff have turned down certain kids who they felt were too big a risk (although given Georgia’s alarming number of open scholarships, I suspect that’s been the case more than we suspect), kids who indeed went on to become problems in college. But I bet Jeff Schultz could write a doozy of a column about a talented kid whom Richt wouldn’t take a chance on, then went on to college and managed to become a success on and off the field. (I’m looking at you, Deion Bonner.)

Speaking of Bonner, maybe Schultz thinks it would be a good idea for Richt to avoid recruiting Columbus Carver entirely. After all, Bonner and Crowell make for two pretty significant flame outs in a short time. Here’s how another Carver grad might answer that:

“I hear that a lot. It ain’t Carver. It’s not Carver It’s the individual,” Jones said. “There’s a lot of great players that that have went on from Carver: Oklahoma State, Duke University, Ole Miss. I mean we’ve got a lot of players in Division I football. It’s the individual that makes mistakes. … It’s never the school, it’s the players.”

Jones, of course, is one of those players that has avoided trouble, despite a rough upbringing.

That’s why you take a risk, if you’re Mark Richt. It’s not just because you have to recruit where the talent takes you, although that’s certainly a large part of it. It’s also, though, because you honestly believe you can make a difference with the kids you bring into the program. You’re not always going to be right about that. But I don’t think that means you should give up altogether.

74 responses to “More Freud, less football coach: Schultz on Richt”

The same attrition takes place other places. It’s just they plan for the attrition at Alabama and LSU and sign 25 players for 18 slots, knowing 7 players will a) do something criminal along the way, b) screw up academically, or c) have significant injuries.

Richt can’t control the actions of everyone on his team, but he can control the number of athletes he has at his disposal.

Then the ones that don’t contribute should have to go elsewhere. Where in the US Constitution does it say that everybody is entitled to a spot on UGA’s roster for the whole 4 years? Actually, that is part of the problem. At Bama, for example, everybody knows that if he doesn’t bust his ass somebody else who will is going to take his scholarship. But not at UGA, nooooo. Show up, don’t get caught smoking dope or fondling girls who don’t want to be fondled or with a gun, and you got it made for 4 years (5 if you redshirt). What do you think would happen to YOUR job if you didn’t really contribute? What are we teaching the kids on the Georgia team with a policy that accepts them as members of the team even when they don’t contribute either because of lack of effort or because it turns out they really don’t possess the skills to help out? What does that evoke in the players who DO bust their asses to contribute, seeing others who don’t contribute, still there and on the team? 69 scholarship players on the roster and we haven’t even had any injuries because fall practice hasn’t started yet. Roster mismanagement is the single biggest mistake that CMR commits, over and over and over and over…………

Come on Mayor, that’s grade A bullshit and you know it. The problem with taking that stance is you start obfuscating the true mission of a University (higher education) with the success of the football team.

Let’s say a kid that earns a scholarship to UGA out of high school based on his athletic merits comes in and never cracks the two-deep. This kid busts his ass every day at practice, but for whatever reason he never develops beyond what he was coming in from high school and rides the pine. Let’s also say that this kid is an exemplary student – never misses a class, is going to graduate on time with good grades, and has never once run afoul of John Q. Law. Can you say with a straight face that there is a legitimate reason for cutting that kid’s scholarship because he fit the definition of a college student to a Tee, but just couldn’t cut it on the football field?

The problem is that there is no objective manner to assess whether this kid’s scholarship should get cut. At least with academic based scholarships there is a set criteria that a student knows he/she must achieve to maintain the scholarship. With athletic scholarships, it’s all subjective judgment based on the head coach’s evaluation which I think is far more power than any one person should have over a kid’s education. I think it’s utter bullshit that anybody could justify cutting some kid’s scholarship because he didn’t pan out as a great football player, but is doing everything else expected of him as a college student and represents the University well. I’m not sure that’s water I want my alma mater to start treading in. Of course, YMMV.

Let me clarify that I have no problem with cutting a kid that is doing all the wrong things (i.e.not going to class, not getting grades, getting in trouble with the law, etc.). Ultimately, there needs to be a set objective criteria that could cause one to lose his athletic scholarship and takes some of the leverage away from coaches in the relationship.

Sooooo, you are OK with getting rid of kids that don’t meet YOUR criteria but are not OK with getting rid of kids that don’t meet somebody else’s criteria. Right. Got it. This reminds me of the old joke about asking a woman: “Would you sleep with me if I gave you $10,000,000?” After a “yes” answer then offering $5. When she says: “NO! What type of girl do you think I am?” then the retort is : “We’ve already established that, now we’re just haggling over the price.”

No, try re-reading that. I’m okay with getting rid of a kid’s scholarship when said kid doesn’t meet an OBJECTIVE criteria over somebody’s (the coach) SUBJECTIVE criteria. I can objectively measure whether a kid is going to class, getting appropriate grades, or how many arrests he has.

I cannot objectively measure how good a kid is performing on the football field. That is in the eye of the beholder and a coach shouldn’t have that type of power over a kid’s education. He should have to prove, without a doubt, that objective parameters of the scholarship were violated before revoking it.

Far too long the coaches have held this power over kids and abuse it everyday. Until there is a transparent, objective criteria set forth on scholarship offers, I will continue to support a player when he is shuffled out the door by the likes of Saban/Spurrier/Miles just because he wasn’t good enough on the football field.

Just to play devil’s advocate here but there’s not as big a distinction between you and the Mayor’s criteria in certain situations, say in a hypothetical situation where all of a University’s classes are graded on a curve. In that case losing your scholarship because you couldn’t crack the two deep would be as objective as losing your scholarship because you couldn’t crack the top 25% of your class.
Back to the discussion at hand, first, i think we can all agree even if Georgia commits to scholarships for a full 4 years for everyone, We need to start using up all of our scholarships. Having only 70 scholarship players not counting former walk ons is absurd. Second, I wouldn’t have a problem, with cutting a guy’s scholarship if the coach deems the player can’t contribute on the field. Provided a few conditions. 1) the player knew that was a possibility when he signed 2) the player can transfer elsewhere without sitting out any time at all, and 3) the player can remain on academic scholarship without counting towards the team’s limit so as to continue his education. Yeah i know these aren’t realistic but I’m talking ideal hypothical situation here.

#3 is the big one for me. I completely agree with those conditions, though. It’s the transparency in the system that has to improve before I will trust a coach over a player. Coaches use the power play on kids by threatening scholarships because they know they can and there’s nothing a kid can do about it.

Also entirely agree on using up all the available scholarships. There’s got to be a better way to get to the 85 number than what we’re doing now. Honestly, I don’t disagree with the Mayor at all with respect to roster management issues. I take issue with his assertion that we should just freely run kids off that are basically dead weight from a football perspective, but could be perfectly productive students/members of the UGA community.

+1 on the using all available scholarships. How Saban accomplishes #3 apparently is by saying that the kid is permanently injured and arranging for the kid to keep his scholarship via a medical hardship. I think the former player has to continue to do something with the team such as work as a manager or some such. Does anyone out there in blogland know?

I read this crap yesterday. Schultz is an F—-ing moron. We’re recruiting the same kids that everyone else in the country is. Crowell was the #1 RB in America and was from GA. If he would have gone to Alabama and won the Heisman, Shultz would have written an article bashing Richt for letting the top players in the state get away. Furthermore he takes a shot at the “dream Team” for losing 7 of its members to attrition. I think the Dream Team has worked out pretty well: Corey Moore, Malcolm Mitchell, John Jenkins, Ray Drew, Chris Conley(Fla. Game), Jay Rome, Amarlo Herrera, Ramik Wilson etc. All contributors and current/future starters. I’d say that was a pretty good haul. 1 of the kids that was dismissed for theft was Nick Marshall. He broke every QB record in GA his senior year. Were we not supposed to go after an athlete like that? What red flags was Richt supposed to see there? We recruited him as a DB but it was well known that Paul Johnson was recruiting him hard at QB. Nick Marshall said that Johnson told him if he came to Tech he would make him a Heisman winning QB. If he’d gone to Tech and gotten himself kicked off their team, do you think Shultz would have written a few paragraphs of swill condemning Johnson for his recruiting methods? I think not. Just look at this guy’s picture in the paper. He looks like the biggest Dbag on earth. Probably got his ass kicked regularly growing up. What else could have turned this moron into the Swill Merchant that he is today.

More evidence of his idiociy…
“He has come a long way from enabling Odell Thurman. He suspends players. He kicks them out.”

You mean the Odell Thurman who was suspended multiple times. Or the Odell Thurman who got kicked out of the program and had to spend a year at Ga Military before being allowed back? Yeah, Mark Richt’s willingness to suspended or kick off a star player has come along way since the time when he was willing to suspend and kick out star players.

Here’s the question I was expecting you to ask in this piece, Senator, and the question I’d like to see Jeff Schultz answer. He references “recruiting risks” in this piece, intimating that there were some sorts of warning signs about Isaiah Crowell or some of the other players Georgia has recruited over the years who have seen early exits from Athens.

I want to know exactly what warning signs there were. Certainly, they weren’t readily apparenty to Schultz, since he neither he nor any other sportswriters covering Georgia (the school or the state) took the chance to write about them. I recall Crowell’s commitment being hailed as a Georgia victory. Certainly, all the other schools out there were recruiting his ass, so they must have missed or ignored these supposed warning signs, too.

What indications were there that the Marshall, Sanders, and Seay would end up trying to steal stuff? Were there any? All accounts I read of those young men said they were going to be assets to the school.

It’s been well documented that UGA’s policies on certain offenses are tougher than other schools and it’s been well documented that UGA is a lot more free with information than other schools. Perhaps we just hear about UGA’s problems more than those at other schools? Regardless, I want to know: How were any of these players undue risks? And how does he account for the players that Georgia DID take a pass on because of worries about their backgrounds? Let’s hear it, Jeff. What were the signs? Because if being from a poor neighborhood and impoverished family makes you a risk, then a LOT of colleges are taking flyers one risky athletes. And if that’s the only “risk” you see, then you need to re-evaluate some of your attitudes.

And that’s saying NOTHING about the borderling slanderous idea that Richt was soft on discipline at any point in his tenure. I expected to lose at Clemson in 2003, for example, because half of the damn team was suspended. Player discipline was NEVER limited to “running stairs or losing dessert privileges.” Enabling Odell Thurman? Richt kicked his ass off the team after a fight and then let him come back *a year later*… he was arrested for underage alcohol (shocker in a college town) and suspended for that. Then, Richt suspended him for three games in 2004 (including a crucial conference game against South Carolina) for another offense. Richt wasn’t enabling anyone, he was disciplining him. Odell screwed up in post-collegiate life.

Amen. Schultz loves to ignore evidence and rewrite history. He loves to say someone is doing something wrong but never has any helpful insight into what they’re dong right. In short, Schultz is nothing more than the bullhorn of the frustrated idiot class of football fans.

I would do anything for him to come onto this message board and defend himself, though I doubt very seriously he can find a defense of his position. He was avoiding criticism in the comments of the AJC while playfully responding.

I really loathe that guy’s writing. Circular logic all over the place and snark that isn’t even funny. It’s a terrible combination.

Everyone recruits the smae kids, the only thing you can control is your discipline standards once they’re on campus as well as how many kids you sign. The only thing Richt needs to do differently is sign more kids and be more discreet and I would argue be a little laxer in how he punishes them as well. Or basically the complete opposite of what Schultz thinks is the problem.

Schultz is a gaseous fuckwit. What about the hundreds of players under Richt that have not done stupid things, but instead have done great ones? What about Matt Stafford, #1 NFL pick and who seems like a pretty charitable dude? Thomas Brown, who is coaching now? Nothing about them?

Young men do stupid things all the time, particularly if they don’t have stabilizing influences at home, this is hardly limited to the Georgia program. Schultz is basically slamming Richt for not having a crystal ball and divining Crowell’s idiotic choices.

the pity of schultzie isn’t that he’s dumb, it’s that he’s lazy. when he was the thrashers beat writer one could read his articles and actually learn something. too much proximity to the dipshittery of mark bradley and deluded personal piety make for a nasty mix on deadline.

No one buys newspapers anymore. Jeff has been hired to write whatever it takes to get eyeballs on a website so advertisers will pay to hawk their wares. It’s the equivalent of the talk show host who panders to our most prurient interests to get people to listen. Newspapers are not in business to sell news or stories anymore than radio and television are in the business of entertainment. They’re all in the advertising business. Period. They need to sell ads or they become unemployed. Period. He’s simply doing what he gets paid to do. We shouldn’t expect anything else. More importantly, we shouldn’t contribute to it by sending folks over there to see what he wrote. Ignore him. Us getting worked up only gets Jeff a raise.

What we all have to do in unison and across the board—do NOT click on links that lead to Schultz or anybody else at the AJC. Every time we do that we reward them for the asinine tripe they print. I actually wish the Senator wouldn’t include the link to that nonsense on this blog. Tell us what the moron said but do NOT reward that dope with the gift of a link.

These revisionist, hindsight observations are sickening. As many above have pointed out, UGA recruited the same athletes as all other SEC schools, the difference is UGA actually enforces standards the others choose not to employ. If they had forgiven the transgressions those of those seven athletes from the Dream Team, would that make UGA and Richt a better program? It is so dumb as to not be worthy as a discussion point.

The better journalist might look deeper into the tragic circumstances of unwed births and broken homes that haunt the black community nationally, or the permissive society/schools that ignores the damages broken homes inflict on these young people, be they white, or black. To attack a man with the character of Mark Richt while ignoring the real issues surrounding these problems is cowardly and shallow. Someone should haul Schultz outside the AJC offices and whale the hell out of him. Better yet, his bosses at the much despised AJC should ask him for the “rest of the story” about other programs’ policies, or identify what steps are being taken to address a national shame are. Short of those additional paragraphs, they should fire his sorry ass for making another “Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious” piece designed only to fill space while imparting no new information while tearing into one of the few positive people in these guys lives. Never buy an AJC, and never click on their links, the paper has done enough damage in its time.

You had to know this was coming from the AJC. Like I posted about Towers and the context /article of the writer from the Birmingham News, today’s alleged sportswriters do not write about sports but about themselves. They like to attack coaches, players, and universites like many journalist do today. They pick and select the programs and coaches they like. They buy into the liberal elities and shelter the Penn States / Paterno plus faculty and the Dukes / Duke faculty / President.
The AJC is a liberal, yellow, newspaper. Look at every writer they have.
If I was the AD I’d have a long talk in Athens about how they report on the sports at UGA. That article is one in a long list of articles highly critical of UGA. CMR does what he can do for the University, the players, the team, and the overall program at Georgia. He has done a very good job. UGA has a great system in place for discipline. It is fair and it is even handed. No coach is more sincere, honest, and genuinely interested in athletes and students at UGA than Mark Richt.
Crowell is an edge player. He demonstrated that at Carver and in the play-offs when UGA stepped up its push. Did the coahces at UGA misjudge him, perhaps…that is the complaint some of us have about the RB position coach. Most fans who follow teams and regions in the lower half of the state understand the set-up in Columbus. One school has all the football players, another all the baseball players, and another the basketball players. Compare Columbus to any other town in Georgia and their high school program. Now why does Schultz address that situation as to whether it is factual or not, or what Carver does. That would be too hard for a Jeff Schultz…like all those writers who failed to see the early signs at PSU or at Duke.
So what does it all mean. Crowell you messed up and wasted a great opportunity. Maturity. Can you coach that?. Perhaps, but anybody who has ever had a 15 to early 20’s son knows it is rough. You hug them one moment and the next you want to kick their butt. And then you think back to your own life. And CMR has a staff, an alumni base, and almost 100 young men who work out every day. Those guys are always on the edge. Crowell’s a good guy, but he was immature and for whatever reason he never understood where he was at at this point in his life.
CMR has these qualities that a Jeff Schultz does not have but feels free to rake CMR on a consistent basis. LIfe experiences in football as a player at top program that has had its issues. A highly regarded OC under one of the most respected coaches in the NCAA D1. A program the set in the top 5 for years. A man deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian faith. An outstanding family man. An outstanding employee and ambassador for the University and athletics at UGA.
Jeffl Schultz is immature. He is a piss poor sports writer. He has a job for life at a piss poor newspaper. He is aware of both of those facts. He is so conflicted about it he can not stand the success of any coach or player. He revels in these kind of situations.
Crowell was dismissed. No one will dismiss Schultz at the AJC. But the AD can sure revoke his press pass. If he wants to write, let him buy a seaon ticket and make a contribution ot the Bulldogs.
Three outstanding players at Hoover, and not one word or sentence about these outstanding young men and their commitment to themselves and their team mates. That never crosses the mind of a Jeff Schultz…a poor, bitter sportswriter from the AJC…one in a long list of them.

Well said, Will. I do not for the life of me understand why CMR, McGarity and the rest of the at Butts-Mehre put up with Schultz or anyone else at the AJC. I hate to say it but Corch had it right. If they were saying negative things about his program they didn’t get access. McGarity of all people should understand this.

The more I read their moronic babble, the better chances those clown dicks get to keep their jobs and keep writing biased, anit-UGA stories. I don’t read the AJC anymore, because the more I read their moronic babble, the better chances those clown dicks get to keep their jobs and keep writing biased, anit-UGA stories. I don’t read the AJC anymore…

Ugh, see, it’s a vicious cycle and just gets me even more irritated. And then I get this weird vein popping out of my forehead, and my wife is like “whats wrong with your head?” And I’m like “this terd-licker at the AJC said this about the Dawgs and…” And she gives me this look like, who the hell is Jeff Shultz, and why do you even care what he writes?

Wish folks would stop defending Mark Richt, when Richt gets criticism that he deserves. Less than 70 scholarship players? No sugar coating, that’s inept management, name another SEC team with that. Yes, Richt doesn’t know ghow to stop it, and has no clue as to what’s causing it. Wake up homers.

That’s justified criticism, and I have no problem with it. What I do have a problem with is having an AJC columnist spin things in ways that aren’t true and writing things that simply aren’t the case; I have a problem with Jeff Schultz writing that Mark Richt was soft on discipline and that he has enabled these players. 70 scholarship players isn’t soft on discipline. If anything, it’s tough on discipline, because he is showing the door to players we need.

However, TAdams, I’ll ask you the same thing that I asked above: what warning signs did Richt supposedly miss? We’ve passed on players with character issues in the past, and these players supposedly came highly referred and with no previous legal issues. What could Richt have done differently? Certainly, he has laid down the law that future transgressions will get people kicked out. What else is there to do, outside of changing UGA’s policies that force his hand whereas the Alabamas of the world don’t have the same problem?

Fools/tools like him don’t have answers, in fact that don’t really have thoughts. Just like to sit in the weeds and bitch and attack. Don’t really get how we have fans that better belong with a Bama, tosu, Barn, TN, etc. where all that matters is winning….even if you have to sacrifice any integrity or principles that true winners have. Be thankful for the good man we have at the helm. It isn’t that you have to agree with every decision or policy he makes, or every play call, just knwing he is committed to doing things the right way and will always represent us in a way that makes us proud is all I need from him. That is what makes you want to be a homer, I just wish we had a way to get those who don’t like our home out of the bunker. Guys like that don’t fit the R&B I know and love.

Newspaper Conspiracy theory–out to get Mark Richt? Really man? Jeff Schultz won an award for top 10 sports jourbnalist in the country, he knows more about football than whoever runs this blog, sure man, aliens are real too 🙂 Or hmm, for the rational sports fans out there, not fanatics, maybe Jeff Schultz has a point??????

Re: Jeff Schultz Award Winning Sports Journalist–Janet Cooke won the Pulitzer Prize while at the Washington Post for a story that later was established to have been a complete and utter fabrication. Just sayin.’

LOL. Yeah, like winning an “award” is reason enough to take everything Schultz says as fact. That one made me nearly spit my beer all over my monitor I laughed so hard. This guy must jerk off to Oscar and Emmy award actors too, huh?

Indeed, Mett is playing for Les Miles as we speak. And a kid who stole from UGA players’ lockers last fall has a full ride to Clemson University. Not everyone passes on some of the players that UGA either passes on or shows the door.

Eh, I’m going to have to disagree there. I don’t think the football coach has much say in the matter once a kid gets popped for felony weapons charges. However, I don’t think there’s any way in hell this would have happened in Tuscaloosa because Saban micro-manages that program so much that a football player wouldn’t be driving around at 3AM on a Thursday without a chaperone or somebody from the program watching him.

Saban doesn’t allow his players to emerge from an alley or ride in Mudcat’s car? I honestly believe if Crowell and company had gone through a roadblock in Tuscaloosa, Saban would have been the first person called. I wish I knew who the football player was that Jimmy Williamson caught screwing his wife/mom/daughter or whatever. Dude harbors more of a grudge than Spurrier does.

No surprise here. Schultz doing what Schultz does. Sensationalism and agitating. That’s the only thing that gets his articles hits on the ajc’s site. People read it for the same reason some folks flip over to MSNBC from time to time. It’s like a train wreck. Schultz hates UGA because it, and more strangely and incongruously represents two demographics that he holds in contempt. Well to do Southerners and middle to lower middle class Souterners (in his mind those awful people who drive pick up trucks), almost exclusively conservative and nothing like him. See, Schultz isn’t the only one who can play the amateure shrink game.

Any high school student-athlete, with even the most impressive and clean resume, who passes every evaluation with flying colors, is perfectly capable of a tragic mistake while in college. As an old theologian once said, there is no limit to the depth to which we are able to fall. True for you and me, true for adolescent males. Point being – there is no exact science to reading the heart of a young man, and what may lurk beneath. Senator is right – Richt is no Freud. Even Freud would have embraced Crowell on signing day and hoped for great things from the young man, and known deep down (with Richt) that it could all be undone in a moment of weakness and foolishness.

To weigh in on the “crappy journalism” issue rather than the “bad apple” issue, I have to say the inverted quality gap between MSM sportswriters and sports bloggers–nearly all of whom are unpaid–continues to amaze me. And the thing is: Schultz is hardly the worst sportswriter at the AJC, and the AJC does not have the worst sports section of the remaining major metro newspapers. It does make me crazy that the AJC used to train its best talent in the sports section (going back to Roy Blount, Jr., and before that, all the way back to Ralph McGill), and still somehow can’t, in the most incredibly employer-controlled labor market in an incredibly employer-controlled economy, find better writers than the people they have. But the problem seems to go well beyond Atlanta, and obviously infects the MSM TV networks as well.

As an online journalist myself, I know we’re all living in hell right now, until such time as the economics of the industry get sorted out and/or the world ends. But sports journalism is particularly screwed up, which is why we should all give daily thanks that folks like the Senator are willing to do this as sidelines.

As someone said previously, the idiots at the Urinal & Constipation would have been killing Richt if he hadn’t signed Isaiah or the Dream Team. Now they get to kill him because a bunch of college kids do stupid stuff (surprise surprise).

Why doesn’t Schultz write an article about Nick Saban not being a good enough parent, or devoting too much time to football (instead of kids), since apparently his daughter kicked the shit out of her sorority sister OVER A YEAR AGO, A POLICE REPORT WAS FILED, and the first anyone hears about it was when a lawsuit was filed last week?!?!?! But no one in the media will write that story, because they know the odds of getting any interviews or access to Saban or Alabama after a story like that are about -1000%; but they can trash our coach, and our players, and our former players, with impunity….

Man vs Man. Richt vs Schultz. Coach vs local sportswriter. If you want to lay out a comparison as a basis for Schultz to hammer CMR again, then why omit the coaching record and awards CMR has in his resume, then think about the intangibles. The young men who have left the program, played well, individual accomplishments of players, the support fans and alumni have poured into the university, the inspiration CMR provides people in this state, and etc.
I’m alum of UGA. I give to the funds. I had my roommate from metro Atlanta flunk out after two quarters becuase he partied every night. Now did the Admissions office misjudge him. No. He meet the requirements. He did not have the motivation or desire to compete in a classroom with his peers. He lacked maturity. A lot of us fans see that in kids on both sides of the field. Crowell showed that several times as a freshman. Other kids in that recruiting class who remain meet the same requirements are playing. CMR’s fault. I think not. These guys have to start taking responsibility for themselves and their team. Crowell has no shame or character. He was lazy. How many kids would love to play in that program and attend classes in colleges that are very good. Walk off campus with a degree and a high recommendation from a man like Richt.
I’ll test Schultz accomplishments in a few weeks on Friday night in the stadiums of football class 1-AAAAAA [that be Valdost, Lowndes, Camden Colquittt County, and company]. I’ll ask those fans if they know Jeff and his world class awards. I would dare say right now not one soul will know who in the hell this guy is give a damn about his trophies or framed paper.
Closing, I doubt if CMR cares about any individual awards he has or will recieved. He is not than kind of man. The man cares about faith, determination, and growth. I’ve never heard any kid who was dismissed or suspended complain about CMR.
But I did not see Schultz write one word about those three young players who were at Hoover. Schultz used that opportunity, Media Days, to attack CMR rather than write about the players who were there, their play, and their development under CMR..